Singita Boulders Lodge

The spacious suites with fronted glass gives you the opportunity to engage with the environment. You will find luxurious rustic handmade furnishings in the suite, a sprawling wooden deck, large living room, spacious bathroom and outdoor pool. In our travels through Africa there were 2 guides that stood out. One...

The spacious suites with fronted glass gives you the opportunity to engage with the environment. You will find luxurious rustic handmade furnishings in the suite, a sprawling wooden deck, large living room, spacious bathroom and outdoor pool. In our travels through Africa there were 2 guides that stood out. One was our guide, Collen at Boulders. His deep knowledge of the animals was beyond belief. He had a way of explaining things that was so interesting and fascinating. Collen was also so kind and a true gentleman. We loved him and miss him! Our tracker Casper was also very special. He and Collen make a great team. We had a lot of fun with both of them and will have lasting memories of our great game drives with them. The food was creative and delicious. Our waitress Vivian was exceptional! Thank you for the wonderful service you provided us. How lucky were we that on the first night of dinner- I recognized Luke Bales eating with his family. Luke is the founder of Singita. He was so friendly, fascinating, and even came to sit and talk with us after dinner. The Boma at the lodge was magnificent. The chefs cooked the food on outdoor grills. The chicken, lamb chops, steak etc. were all marvelous. We sat with our guide and tracker for dinner and had the best time being with them. The staff entertained us with a lively show of singing and dancing. All the staff were so attentive. Perfection does not just happen at Boulders without the leadership of the General Manager, Grant. He was always present and so engaging. He sat with us for a lunch and at a breakfast and we loved talking with him. Thank you to everyone who made our stay at Boulders with memories that will last a lifetime! What a wonderful way to end our African Adventure.

Hands down one of the best places we’ve ever stayed! The property is simply beautiful and every cottage has an amazing view of the river with wildlife everywhere for viewing from your private deck and plunge pool. The room was huge with every amenity you need, including a second half...

Hands down one of the best places we’ve ever stayed! The property is simply beautiful and every cottage has an amazing view of the river with wildlife everywhere for viewing from your private deck and plunge pool. The room was huge with every amenity you need, including a second half bath. They provide everything from bug spray (their signature scent actually smells great!), sunscreen, safari bags, ponchos, and safari hats. We also appreciated the plentiful outlets and USB ports by both sides of the bed. Every game drive (even the drives to and from the airport) provided amazing up close viewing of wildlife from elephants, lions, leopards, rhino, zebra, giraffe, buffalo etc. but it wasn’t just the animals that make Boulders exceptional, it’s the people that feel like family. Our guide Coman and tracker Rebel were highly skilled but also wonderful people who made safari so much fun. And Gift made every meal special with her attentiveness (including to my husband’s food allergy) and humor. Other staff highlights included Ali (so welcoming and funny) and Jordi (always remembered our drink order with a smile). We really liked the hot breakfast sandwiches and coffee on the morning game drives and the adult beverages in sippy cups on the evening drive! This place thought of everything. We highly, highly recommend and wished we had stayed longer instead of going to another resort in Kruger…after Boulders nothing could measure up!

From the moment we met Jordi and were shown to our room, we thought we were in paradise. No photographs can show the amazing lodge and suites, or the phenomenal views of the Sand river. We saw Elephants, African Buffalo, and Giraffes just from our balcony, and almost ran into...

From the moment we met Jordi and were shown to our room, we thought we were in paradise. No photographs can show the amazing lodge and suites, or the phenomenal views of the Sand river. We saw Elephants, African Buffalo, and Giraffes just from our balcony, and almost ran into an Nyala grazing by our pathway. From the top of the line food and drinks, to the phenomenal staff congeniality, I cannot express the fantastic time we had visiting Singita with my wife. Special kudos to our guide Coleman and tracker Peter, who showed us the Big 5 within 24 hours of us landing, and in 4 days also allowed us to share their love of the land with leopard sitings (x3) and lion sitings (x4) on top of all the rest of the beautiful animals of Sabi Sands. I would also like to thank Shiren, Frans, Freddy, Tumi, Luke, Otto, Enuel...and all of the Singita staff for making our stay so memorable. They anticipated ALL of our needs from suntan lotion, insect spray, converters, laundry, the gym, food preferences etc ...I can go on and on. Seeing the beauty of the land, the animals, and most of all the people of Sabi Sands in person was one of the most rewarding trips we have ever experienced. Our sincerest thank you for your hospitality and highly personalized service. Very few vacations my wife has said she hopes to return to one day, and this was one of them. Cannot more highly recommend.

This lodge is spectacular. The villa here is among my favorite rooms from all hotels / resorts I've ever visited. This is our second visit here and I enjoyed this visit more than I did the first time. Our game drives were led by Kayla (Guide) and Kevin (tracker). They...

This lodge is spectacular. The villa here is among my favorite rooms from all hotels / resorts I've ever visited. This is our second visit here and I enjoyed this visit more than I did the first time. Our game drives were led by Kayla (Guide) and Kevin (tracker). They were great, and a real pleasure be with for 3 days. The size of the property is large, and I felt that we saw more of the diversity within the landscape than we did during our first visit. It was very cool. Lots of lions and leopards (the density of leopard here is among the highest of any location in africa). We also saw cape buffalo, rhino, and many others. The rooms are spectacular. One doesn't spend a ton of time within the room, but time spent there is relaxing and beyond pleasant. The food at boulders is marvelous, better than that at Lebombo (IMO). The wine collection at boulders is fantastic, and the wine enthusiasts that we met here were raving about it. Our hostess throughout hte week is named Wish and she is the best ambassador that Singita could ever want. She is warm, wickedly funny, and basically made us feel like we were spending a week at Aunt Wish's house. I can't say enough about how great she is. This is a very expensive trip, but the spa and gift shop are surprisingly affordable and worthwhile. I recommend that visitors frequent each of them. This trip is magnificent, I recommend it to anyone wanting to visit South Africa for a safari.

We had visited Boulders and Lebombo in 2019, and while both were excellent, Boulders was clearly the better of the two. So when we planned a return visit to South Africa, we made sure Boulders was on the list. The Boulders of the last week was nearly unrecognizable from the...

We had visited Boulders and Lebombo in 2019, and while both were excellent, Boulders was clearly the better of the two. So when we planned a return visit to South Africa, we made sure Boulders was on the list. The Boulders of the last week was nearly unrecognizable from the one we fell in love with three years ago. There are two types of hotels in the world since 2020, those who use COVID as an excuse to deliver an even worse product (at a higher price) and those, (like cheval blanc randheli, or aman tokyo) that use it as an opportunity to get even better. Boulders is part of the former, 5k USD/night (from 4k USD/night in 2019) yet not even one half as good as it was. Granted, for maybe half of that price, this experience may have been passable, but when you know what it once was, and you reach that kind of price point in Africa, you expect nothing short of exceptional. They are making a pretty penny off the guests, and so they just as well could retain talent, maintain upkeep, and deliver new updates, COVID or not, like any top of the line resort these days. The first thing that seemed off was the service and attention to detail. Last time, within minutes it seemed they already knew everything I wanted or could want and delivered it with a smile. I remember fondly last time coming back from a game drive and hanging out at the bar with the bartender who made an excellent old fashioned and then he brought some freshly baked snack-size pizzas from the kitchen, completely impromptu. I mentioned it on my first day this time in 2022, and wondered if they could make some of those again, of course it never came. But the real reason is that they used to have a fully competent staffed bar all throughout the day, serving drinks, coffees, snacks etc and now it is mostly empty. When you do go to ask for a coffee, they'll find someone who will come back 10 minutes later and the milk will be rancid and they won't give a spoon or sugar. Or if you ask for sugar, it'll take three people fumbling around for another 10 minutes looking for it and finally it comes back and your coffee is cold. This just would never have happened three years ago. Apart from whoever bakes the daily fresh bread (which is still excellent), they have clearly lost significant talent in the kitchen. They used to have personalized menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And while you could always request something, they would change the menus every day, and each dish would be more creative than the next. Now they've combined breakfast and lunch into 'Brunch' and the only breakfast dishes are 'Eggs' meanwhile the rest of the Brunch items are clearly more for lunch time and half the time won't even be available if you ask for them. Not to mention, very little of the menu will change any more. Dinner is now mostly just grilled meats and sides, with an occasional change in soup or salad. I remember last time they had an amazing antelope tartare, that looked like a modern sashimi dish from Nobu with beautiful garnishes and great flavor combos. They used to have some variation on that every other night or so last time, I asked what happened to it and they gave me the new version. Basically a dog bowl of raw meat with no garnish or side. I didn't even take a bite. I was sick of 'eggs' by the last day and asked if they could do a french toast, or any other sort of breakfast speciality (seeing as the rest of the brunch menu was 'off limits' due to it being too early) and they gave me some nearly inedible wonder bread toast with some sort of lemon essence, it was hard to eat so I left most of it, like a disturbing amount of the meals. Desserts are no longer worth taking, as they seem to be pre-made and frozen and then brought out at serving, hard, ice cold, and lacking any style or flavor. Finally, while the park is still breathtaking, and the wild life still phenomenal, the game drives too seem to have suffered from a lack of attention to detail. We were placed with a particularly obnoxious couple with the emotional intelligence and awareness of grade-schoolers, who wouldn't shut up and stop telling inane stories or asking that we look at their photos while we literally experienced the same exact visuals. There was no pause for effect, or any sort of allowing the moment to take you in like last time. The guide, bless his heart, seemed to notice our annoyance, and we stopped going on the game drives all together because we didn't have it in us to tell this couple to give the ear a rest. Nonetheless, no one from the lodge seemed to take notice, or check in with us, or see why we weren't going on the drives. They could've easily offered to put us in another car, or given us a different guide, anything, anything at all, but of course they did nothing. We even mentioned how we would have liked to see the canine unit one day, and of course it was peremptorily offered at 7pm on our last night, when of course it was too late to do anything about it. It's worth noting that very few of the current guests are repeat customers, we were one of the only ones. My guess is, like me, they don't see the value or can't bring themselves to experience such a lesser copy of the former lodge, and why tarnish the great memories with these poor new ones. The hotel hasn't been renovated in years, and the rooms are definitely worse for the wear. The windows and roof are like sieves for insects so you'll be getting plenty of insect bites. The beds are hard as rock. Another funny aside: we asked for a mattress pad our first night and they said housekeeping had done it, but it was just as hard as before. We asked for plain cotton sheets (I know, so much to ask) instead of the itchy linen ones and they again, did nothing. I had to take a picture, and show them what to change, so then they did the pillow cases but left the duvet. After the third time asking, I just gave up. I'm literally exhausted from the last four days, and writing this review was hard to do as it's painful to spend 20k on a vacation and be more stressed than you left it, but hopefully our time in Cape town (at a fraction of the price) will make up for that. I'll certainly get a meal at least (for less than 100 usd for two) that will be a million times better than anything I ate at boulders. They're literally kicking us out at the earliest possible time today. This after emailing me earlier this year before our arrival telling me to change my flight from Joburg to Capetown to a later time to 'avoid a tight transfer'. So now I have a lovely 7 hour wait at Tambo awaiting for a 1.5 hour flight to Cape Town, a fitting parting gift from Singita.

The Boulders is just wonderful! Beautiful! The location along a river is spot on because the animals love coming to the water & large groups of elephants, giraffes, & zebras came by and entertained us during our outdoor lunches. In the morning we were picked up by our greats guides,...

The Boulders is just wonderful! Beautiful! The location along a river is spot on because the animals love coming to the water & large groups of elephants, giraffes, & zebras came by and entertained us during our outdoor lunches. In the morning we were picked up by our greats guides, Nick & Vusie. They knew just where to find all the animals and taught us so much about them. They took such good care of us too bringing us hot water bottles for chilly mornings, making us delicious coffee & homemade treats. On the afternoon rides they brought along cocktails & audhorves … it is a luxurious safari to say the least. Loved it! Our room was an enormous suite beautifully decorated as was the bathroom. On our deck over looking the river we had our own heated plunge pool. To sit in the pool and watch the animals in the river was something I won’t forget. In the evening we returned to a fire roaring in the fireplace… The staff is great as everyone has already said. They know you, remember you , your likes and preferences. They all go out of their way to make it special for the guests. They are ALL lovely! We had a wonderful time at the Boulders & at Singita Sweni also.

From the second I stepped off the plane I was warmly welcomed into the Singita family. We were greeted with warmth and kindness that felt authentic. The entire staff was extremely passionate and knowledgeable about the area, the property etc. The service was top notch and the little things really...

From the second I stepped off the plane I was warmly welcomed into the Singita family. We were greeted with warmth and kindness that felt authentic. The entire staff was extremely passionate and knowledgeable about the area, the property etc. The service was top notch and the little things really stand out. The safari was spectacular. We saw the big 5 in the first few days and had some incredible once in a lifetime moments. The spa, the food and the service was impeccable. This placed exceeded my expectations. I hope I am lucky enough to return one day.

5star all round. What an experience. Rooms are beautiful, attention to detail exceptional, food delicious. We stayed for 2 nights and saw the BIG 5. Highly recommend this lodge. Nick and Vusi exceptional and knowledgeable game rangers.

Boulders is unparalleled in terms of game viewing, hospitality and food. Vusi and Nick were our tracker and guide. Through them we had many wonderful sightings and felt connected to nature in a totally new way despite being on many other trips to Africa. We also had a lot of...

Boulders is unparalleled in terms of game viewing, hospitality and food. Vusi and Nick were our tracker and guide. Through them we had many wonderful sightings and felt connected to nature in a totally new way despite being on many other trips to Africa. We also had a lot of fun The food and wine at Boulders is beyond delicious. It was presented with warm professional attentiveness by Ernest. The sommelier, Minnie, presented the most spectacular wines from the vast wine cellar which has international fame for good reason. Minnie individualized her wine recommendations to our tastes and we were able to expand our knowledge of wine and try new wines. A wine tasting with Minnie was arranged to our delight. A special Hamilton dinner was arranged for us because Boulders knew we are fans. It was magnificent. The courses were named for songs from the show down to the cocktails. This is one example of many individual thoughtful touches.

When we decided to go on a last-minute safari, Singita Boulders seemed like the obvious option. Traveling 15+ hours to go on a 4 day safari may have seemed crazy to some, but when you are going to Singita—it’s well worth the journey. They made accommodations for all of our...

When we decided to go on a last-minute safari, Singita Boulders seemed like the obvious option. Traveling 15+ hours to go on a 4 day safari may have seemed crazy to some, but when you are going to Singita—it’s well worth the journey. They made accommodations for all of our very specific kosher dietary needs and were meticulous about ensuring every single detail was perfect. With only 3-4 other couples at the lodge at the time, we felt like we were the only guests. We had our own jeep and really felt like our driver and tracker understood quickly what we wanted to see and made sure to go above and beyond to make it happen. We saw the Big Five within 48 hours and a kill on our third day. The rooms are great. Having the fireplace in the winter is an extra-nice touch. We hope to be back at Singita again.